Direction of travel appears to be op-
tional, police attempting to navigate
traffic, at times raw sewage creating
a wet roadway and pungent smell,
potholes seemingly designed to seek
and destroy the front wheel of the
motorcycle, and all the regular sights
and sounds of Kathmandu – on ste-
roids during rush-hour, which seems
to permeate most of the day.
Finally clearing the Valley at the
rim and combining with other trav-
el partners who opted to miss the
exciting fray of Kathmandu Valley,
we all loaded up for the little-known
back road, without the truck traffic
coming from India on the main road,
to the Chitwan National Park. A new
lesson – perfectly good roads can
change into absolute rubble in very
short order. The road chosen was
one of those that would be better to
be dirt than the pock-marked, ran-
dom checkerboard, pattern of what
was once a good road. It was hard to
believe I blasted down this road just
TRAVERSE 93